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David Dayen: Exits Blogging & Obama’s Bad Offer

On today’s show Sam talks with the great David Dayen (@ddayen) about his exit from the liberal blogosphere and Obama’s new offer to the GOP.

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Obama’s plan, like Boehner’s, would also raise taxes on dividends and capital gains from 15 percent to 20 percent. Both would also reduce the number of deductions and exemptions that wealthy taxpayers can claim. Obama’s proposal also would let estate taxes revert to 55 percent on estates after allowance for a $1 million exemption.

In making his offer, Obama stiff-armed Republican demands to increase the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67, a goal Democrats strongly reject. He also sought to contain cuts in Medicare and other health care programs to about $400 billion over 10 years, less than what Republicans want. And he is continuing to seek spending on unemployment assistance and on public works projects.

Obama’s willingness to reduce future cost-of-living increases in Social Security would also mean smaller annual increases in government pensions and veterans’ benefits. Annual adjustments to income tax brackets would be smaller, pushing more people into higher tax brackets.

Over time, because annual adjustments to the poverty level would be smaller, the new index could reduce the number of people eligible for programs such as Medicaid, Head Start, food stamps, school lunches and home heating assistance.

To avoid some of that risk, Obama wants lower-income recipients to receive protection against any loss from scaling back future cost-of-living increases, people familiar with his plan said.

Not that anyone reads this but here goes. Sam said that we should shame those who own a lot of guns. That is not the right tactic. Shaming someone because they are doing something legal yet potentially unsafe just shuts the door to any communication. The thing that we should be doing is trying to get those who do own lots of guns to understand the responsibility they have which is to secure their guns so they can’t be used for harm.

The best solution to the problem of gun violence is one that the pro-gun side will accept and willingly implement. I don’t know if that is possible but it should be tried before we start banning guns again as gun bans haven’t done that much good. It would be better if we could get the existing guns registered and far better controls on who is allowed access to guns.

RT @ThePlumLineGS: Dick Durbin: Chained CPI for Social Security as part of fiscal cliff deal is “the wrong way to go”: http://wapo.st/XF7m85

[Whole article]

This may cheer liberals who are worried that the White House is giving too much ground to Republicans by proposing “Chained CPI” for Social Security as part of a final fiscal cliff deal — in effect agreeing to a cut in Social Security benefits.

In an interview with me this morning, Senator Dick Durbin, a top ally of the White House, told me he opposes including Chained CPI for Social Security in the final deal. He said it would be difficult for Democrats to support Chained CPI for Social Security if it ended up in the deal, though he said it was premature to say anything definitive about how they would vote.

“We ought to deal with Social Security in a separate conversation that is not part of deficit reduction,” Durbin told me. “To do it at this stage is the wrong way to go.”

Durbin has said this before, but it’s notable that he’s repeating it in the wake of the White House’s reported offer of a deal that includes Chained CPI for Social Security.

Pressed on why the White House is backing this, given that it’s bad policy, Durbin blamed Republicans, saying they were insisting on including it in a final deal. “The president is trying to get to an agreement, and I understand that,” Durbin said. “Boehner has been adamant that he wants Chained CPI.”

“The Speaker and many of his Republican friends are hell bent on Chained CPI,” Durbin continued. “It may be part of an overall solution [later] but to do it at this stage is the wrong way to go.”

Durbin pointedly said that it would be a “hard ask” for many Senate Dems if the White House includes Chained CPI for Social Security in a final deal. But Durbin declined to rule out the possibility that Senate Democrats would ultimately support it if the White House insisted on it.

For liberals who want to prevent this from happening, their best hope may be to pressure Democratic lawmakers to declare this a nonstarter. When enough Democrats spoke out against hiking the Medicare eligibility age, the White House got the message that many in the party viewed it as unacceptable, and drew a hard line against it in the talks.

Medicare offers all enrollees a defined benefit. Hospital care is covered under Part A and outpatient medical services are covered under Part B. To cover the Part A and Part B benefits, Medicare offers a choice between an open-network single payer health care plan (traditional Medicare) and a network plan (Medicare Advantage, or Medicare Part C), where the federal government pays for private health coverage. *’..;

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